July 12, 2017 WEDNESDAY

Guest Peter Original Designer of Cedar Meadows Restoration

Come be inspired!

Here’s an opportunity to see early stage of entry transformation from standard, non-native invasive shrubs to all native shrubs, forbs, and grasses. A client of Douglas Owens-Pike, whom he’s worked with since 1997 at another site (2324 Oliver), the back yard of this new site was graded for lawn inside the fence. Outside are rough piles of fill, including exposed chunks of concrete, colonized by boxelder. Yet, there are gems like a clump of wahoo that survived the fill and a drainway dug next to it. We’ve been working to restore native diversity into this industrial waste for the past several years.

Hoping to stop at nearby wetland restoration between France Ave. and Cedar Lake. An area that had been mowed lawn is now filtering street runoff that had been polluting the Minneapolis chain of lakes. Water clarity dramatically improved in just a few years following the installation of the wetland natural filtration system in 1996.

“Public education campaigns have seen an over 50 percent reduction in pesticides in stormwater runoff from the contributing watershed. Alum treatments have locked up the accumulated historical phosphorus in lake sediments and treatment ponds have resulted in the reduction of new phosphorus loading into the system. Stormwater treatment ponds range from a 25 percent removal rate to a 66 percent removal rate and measurable changes have been seen in a relatively short period of time.”